Story Title/Link: Drawing the future
School and Theme: Mahoutokoro/Friendship
Special Rule: Create a creature
Mandatory Prompt: [Object] A mural
Additional Prompt(s): [Event] Playing tag
Year: 4
Word count(minus the author's note): 1929
Additional important note to judges for consideration while reading and writing feedback: This submission is a bit of a take on a seer!Luna AU and how she seems to know things she can't quite explain, that is the only non-canon element involved in this work.

Luna Lovegood was having a Wonderful time as she hummed and fiddled with an enlarged canvas sitting before her, seemingly ignorant to her fellow students in the Great Hall looking at her strangely. The nargles were leaving her alone today for some reason as well, strange that. Nonetheless, she was not going to look a gift thestral in the snout.

"Hmm… What to do today…" she pondered out loud in her normal breezy, yet almost ethereal tone. A quick rummage through her bag saw her paint palette and brush drawn out in one hand and tubes of paint in the other; then she set the canvas up in just the position that seemed right to her. Said position was not that of a landscape or portrait, but instead an off-center diamond way.

"Loony is.."
"What's wrong with that weirdo.."

Luna ignored the comments as she squeezed out the various shades of color onto the palette before turning back to the canvas fully. Such words didn't bother her anymore; she heard the others talk like that about her all the time. Without any real thought, she took the first brush and ran it through a bright yellow, saturating the fibers completely before mixing it in a splotch of white to dilute the brightness. Her initial brushstrokes upon the canvas appeared random as she hummed some off-key melody. Before her eyes a shape began to take form, an animal shape that seemed to be in a position that was somewhere between a hunch and leaping position. Her head tilted this way and that as her hand pulled the paint brush back.

"Well hello, my soon to-be fuzzy little friend. Aren't you just a curiosity? What secrets you will reveal be quite interesting," she pondered out loud, tapping the paint brush absently on her cheek, leaving paint marks on her skin.

For nearly an hour she let her mind stray and wander as it wished, watching an expansive field form before her. The yellow animal turned into what looked like a rabbit with something that looked like a leek stalk in its mouth, though it did have horns coming from its head, and it appeared to be running with other animals in a pack formation carrying similar looking vegetables in their own mouths. A silvery white owl was flying in the sky between the clouds and accompanying it was a green feathered raven that possessed four black eyes. Both avians were glaring at a colony of albino white snakes baring their fangs at the charging rabbits.

"Just what are you doing and why have I seen dreams of you," she wondered aloud. It was certainly turning into an odd mural and was not something that she would normally paint. Her normal projects were bright and cheery with almost blinding shades of color but this, this was not.

"What did you paint, Luna?"

Luna turned and spotted one of her fellow first years; the young girl was a Hufflepuff and the badger patch on her robe declared it loudly to the world. For a long moment, she searched her mind for the young woman's name but only drew a blank.

"I don't know. I saw it in a dream. I think they're going to play tag with each other." she said, tilting her head curiously while motioning a paint stained thumb at the canvas, her words coming out in a breezy yet confused tone. Were they going to play tag? She wasn't quite certain, given how the two groups seemed to be looking at each other unhappily and the two avians in the sky were looking at the snakes with the same disdain.

The Hufflepuff girl had a look on her face that seemed to show that she was slightly dubious at the response she'd received. Did Luna sincerely believe that the two groups were going to play tag when the snakes looked like they wanted to eat the animals running towards them?

"I doubt that playing tag is what's going to happen, Luna. The snakes look really mean and mad," she said, offering her own two knuts. "The snake with the red eyes looks like it wants to attack all the other animals running towards the rest of the assembled snakes."

"So?" Luna said in defense of her work. "Just because someone looks mad, does that mean they don't like to play games? Look at the Giant Squid and the Merpeople in the Black Lake. The Giant Squid throwing the Merpeople up in the air could be seen as being mean but if you listen to them they don't make sounds of fear or anger. They laugh as much as you or I when we swim in the lake."

The Hufflepuff girl was not entirely convinced by the attempt at justification of Luna's view on the subject of her mural.

"Just look at their mouths, wide open, and their fangs are dripping venom onto the ground." When Luna didn't respond she continued. "I really don't think that what they are about to do with the other animals can be called playing tag."

"That's how you see it," Luna said with her eyes still on the painting. "Art is a very subjective thing you know. It might seem to you like there is something bad about to happen, but to me, it looks like they're about to play tag." Luna's breezy and serene tone took on a split second of firmness before she turned slightly on her seat to squirt a splotch of black paint onto her palette. She heard the Hufflepuff girl leave, muttering something that sounded like 'mad as a box of frogs' under her breath. Luna paused for a moment, wondering what a mad box had to do with frogs. Boxes could not get mad; they weren't sentient beings.

"Or are they…" she wondered, furrowing her brow as a brief flash of a memory stirred in her mind. Her mother, before her death, had once told her about a peculiar creature she had seen in one of the early expeditions Xenophilius had taken her on after they got married and honeymooned in Africa. The creature had been box shaped with dark brown, so dark it was almost black fur. It had ten long spindly legs that looked like gnarled tree branches and a dozen eyes; at least that's what she knew from what her mother had told her. Her paintbrush dipped into a splotch of brown paint, drawing a box-like body before a dip into the black paint added the spindly gnarled legs, and red dots added for the eyes, courtesy of her pinky finger.

"Needs more personality… Hmm… Ah, I got it!" Excitement colored her cheeks as she dropped the palette to the ground after dragging the paintbrush through a muddied brown smear flicked with yellows and greens. She dragged it across the box-like spider creature's body giving it something that looked like a sash. With all the care of an intent artist she carefully used the tips of her nails to carve out a word from the paint, and that word was Justice.

"Ms. Lovegood, you look rather..."

Luna peered around the canvas looking for the source of the voice speaking to her. It took her a moment before she noticed the diminutive form of her Charms Professor and Head of House. Filius Flitwick.

"Oh, hello, professor, I was just enjoying the afternoon. I had the most peculiar dream last night, you see. All these animals playing tag and the Turboxin spying on them" she said lightly.

"What is a Turboxin precisely? I've never heard of it," Professor Flitwick said, curiously peering up at the canvas of painted animals.

"A Turboxin is a ten-legged magical spider found in Africa. My mother and father found a colony of them in the southern parts when they were on honeymoon. It was a rather fascinating affair from my mother's recollection. You see, she told me how these creatures seemed to live in harmony with the magical communities. The Turboxin's would supply the wizards and witches with silk, while the witches and wizards would provide artificial residences for the spiders.

"Of course, my mother also said she saw one or two of the humans be eaten alive in the middle of the area where the coexistence was going on. They were reportedly unfazed so one has to wonder how often that would happen," Luna said, without giving the second half of Professor Flitwick's comment any acknowledgement right away. . "Do you know what the two most highly debated subjects in the world are, Professor Flitwick?"

"I'm afraid I don't follow, Ms. Lovegood."

"That's quite alright, Professor, you don't think the same way as I or my father do so your answer would be most likely very different from mine. These two subjects are Art and Religion," Luna said with barely a shrug as if she was unbothered by fact the professor was not of the same train of thought as herself. "Religion is easy enough to explain just by stating the word- religion. Wars fought, people murdered and maimed for no good reason whatsoever. No one religion agrees with others, not even the Old Religion."

Filius nodded at that statement. Luna was not wrong in that regard. "I understand why you say religion is a highly debatable subject, but care to elaborate on why you mention Art as the other? The eyes see what is put down and that visual message is good as any verbal declaration of what the artist is trying to say he replied, tilting his head at the canvas to see if a slight visual perspective change would do any good to see these creatures about to participate in a game of tag.

"Art is a very subjective realm of exploration. You could tell me the sky is blue because I paint to be so and I could tell that you are wrong," Luna said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"The sky is blue though."

"Muggle Unspeakables have proven otherwise with their muggle magic machines. At least that is the impression that I got while working on Professor Snape's essay last night. You'd be surprised what some of the things muggles have done if what the Sixth Year Prefect said is true. I didn't understand a whole lot of what they were saying but that was the short and simple I could get my head around." Luna turned her head to look up at the sky with a serene smile on her lips. "The point that I'm trying to make," she began as she tapped the side of her completed mural, "is that it's all a matter of perspective."

Apparently eager to wrap up the conversation, Professor Flitwick said "I suppose it is, Ms. Lovegood. Might I suggest you get cleaned up for dinner? You have as much paint decorating your face and hands as much as it decorates your canvas."

"I should, shouldn't I?" Luna asked in a way that suggested she wasn't looking for an actual answer from the professor. Returning her gaze to the canvas, her smile grew just a touch more as she tossed the paint tubes, paintbrush and palette into her bag uncaringly. But then with the care of a mother cradling her child, she picked up the canvas and walked off towards Ravenclaw tower, humming a rather odd but happy-sounding melody as the remains of afternoon sunlight danced off the paint decorating her skin it gave her an otherworldly and ethereal sort of glow to her skin.